A Failure of Democracy: A Current Postscript English Education at the start of the 21st Century[1] John Abbott, in a discussion with his assistant of five years Jim Robinson, reflects on the political and philanthropic landscapes, and the rise of globalised solutions… Jim Robinson (JR): I came to work with the Initiative in September 2010, […]

A Recap: Where we are now. During the first five or six years of this century the Initiative had put enormous energies into delivering lectures and training programmes in response to numerous invitations in England from local education authorities; from the Canadian Council on Learning, and comparable groups in other countries. In England (the home […]

“Mankind is in the middle of a revolution which has every prospect of making a more significant impact on our way of life than did the Industrial Revolution….. The end of the twentieth century is the mind stretching age of technological change; the ingenuity of mankind seems able to open doors that we hardly knew […]

“I had a teacher once… no oil painting he, with sagging stomach, Roman nose and Hapsburg chin. He taught us both ‘A’ level history and English, but he was equally passionate about cricket, medieval art and music. We never knew what would happen in each lesson, he simply fascinated us and sent us scampering away […]

“Doing it for your self” is a deeply engrained human instinct, something built up in the human genome over millions of years that increases our ability to survive. It’s about resilience, the determination that the more you can do for yourself, the more in control of your future you believe yourself to be. As […]

“What is life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?”1 What do we mean, and what did previous generations mean, when we speak of seeking a work/life balance? Do we see ourselves as Pilgrims or Customers? In the years leading up to the eighteenth century, Englishmen indulged themselves […]